Two Hearts
by randolhllee
Summary: Prompt (from Tumblr user thedorkone): "Root/Shaw, Soulmates AU (the kind with the name of the soulmate inked on your skin since birth, if that works for you?)"


The dark-haired woman came in on the tail end of a December's graveyard shift, magnetically pulling the first rays of the weak winter light into being even as her appearance drew Shaw to her gurney. A small eddy of EMTs and nurses followed; a night in the ER could never be called slow, but this one had been empty of complications and large groups until this latest arrival.

"What have we got?" Shaw's black runners had been on the move since she heard the familiar sirens streaking into the ambulance bay, but they quickened when the gurney cleared the door.

"Samantha Groves, early thirties, restrained driver in a collision. Possible trauma to the chest and neck, laceration on the face, unstable BP in the field and shortness of breath. Unconscious in the field but came to in the bus. We've got others on the way." The entire group danced with the fast-paced delivery to roll the gurney through the ER. When the EMT had finished, he and everyone else looked to Shaw for a decision.

"Bay five," she snapped decisively, standing aside to let the nurses roll the patient into place. "Do we know how many others?" She turned her head sharply to glance at the EMT.

"At least three."

"All right." She began to move again, fluid and fast, her slight frame and stature working in her favor in the bustling room. "Evans, make sure we have three beds clear for the rest. Ready? One, two, three!" Her words were the electric cue on which she and the nurses shifted the woman from gurney to bed, then Shaw got to work.

Or tried to. For the first time since the patient had entered, Shaw looked down and saw her face. The woman's eyes were open and scared, but even that was familiar. There was something else there, though, a fierce determination coupled with a soft beauty that made Shaw think that this woman would be often underestimated and rarely bested.

"Dr. Shaw?" The three seconds in which the world had seemed to stop caught up to Shaw in a rush of noise and a sudden awareness of the nurse behind her waiting to check Samantha's blood pressure.

"Samantha, I'm going to check your neck and chest now, okay? Don't worry." She felt the unfamiliar assurance fall out of her mouth awkwardly. It was something she rarely said; more often she remained focused on the medical side and let the nurses offer emotional support.

"Are the others all right?" Shaw's hands unclasped the neck brace and started checking for internal injuries, finding none. She moved lower, but still felt nothing obvious. She almost did not register the numbers on Samantha's chest, just to the left of the sternum, but when she did, her heart muscle spasmed in total recognition.

"They're just coming in right now," she answered absent-mindedly, certain that the flurry of activity behind her made her words true. "Does this hurt?" When Samantha shook her head, she dragged her eyes and hands from the woman's stomach to hold her head firmly still with both hands. "Please don't move your head if you can help it." This returned a look of concern to Samantha's face, so Shaw switched tracks to distraction. "What happened?" She had had a rather overzealous professor at at Johns Hopkins, all sharp eyes and sharper words, who had vehemently ordered them to _always _make a rapport with the patient. Shaw considered that it was perhaps a strange time to start obeying, but ignored the thought.

"I swerved… to avoid… hitting a dog," Samantha confessed. It was hardly a confession, though, as she seemed unrepentant. "Stopped really suddenly. The guy behind me… and the one behind him… not as fast." She smiled a little and Shaw grinned in encouragement, now checking breath sounds.

"Okay, Samantha," Shaw said, shifting back to stand next to her patient's head. The nurse nodded to indicate that her other vitals were fine. "I'm going to take you up for a scan to make sure, then we'll get someone to stitch up the cut on your face and send you home."

A hand came up to grasp Shaw's left wrist, which was resting uncharacteristically close to the patient's head. In fact, she was leaning over quite a bit more than she usually did.

"Thank you," she said quietly. Shaw could only stare down with slightly widened eyes, aware that the nurse across the bed was witnessing everything.

When she could break the electric connection of brown eyes, moments or maybe years later, Shaw looked up at the nurse.

"I've got it." With that, the nurse turned and slipped back into the busy stream of a rejuvenated ER waking up to the day. An hour later, on her coffee break, she could be heard to express surprise over the young doctor's behavior.

"I've never seen her talk to a patient about anything that wasn't medically necessary," she professed. "Patient was really pretty, though. Bet that's it."

That was not _it_, though. _It _was the series of ten numbers that Shaw had memorized out of necessity while applying for undergraduate schools, the same number that she had seen lit up in small, faint white lines across her patient's heart: her own Social Security number.

When she put Samantha in the CT machine and returned to the control room, she took a brief moment to check the patient's chart. _There. _

Just below the name, jumbled in amongst all the insurance jargon and strings of numbers, sat nestled the answer Shaw had been looking for. Another series of ten numbers, another Social Security number.

Shaw could have waited and dug the small compact mirror out of the vortex of her gym bag when she returned to her locker, checked the reflection just to make sure, but there was no need. She instantly recognized that number, would know it anywhere; it was the number that had held her curiosity for all her life.

"Samantha, I'm going to start the machine now," she called into the microphone. Then she cleared her throat. "But, uh… You can talk to me, if you want, to get your mind off it."

"Sure," came the amused reply. "But please don't call me Samantha."

Shaw nodded and grinned, so uncharacteristically enthusiastic that she forgot the other woman could not see her. "What should I call you?" she asked, pressing the buttons that started the scan.

"Root."

Shaw stood back, letting the machine take over. Her hand fell unconsciously over the material of her scrubs to rest above the exact spot on her sternum where she, too, had a number.

"Root, then. So… You like dogs?"

* * *

><p>Super-fluffy (the title especially, sorry not sorry) and definitely AU, but I tried to keep some recognizable elements of Root and Shaw :)<p> 


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